Russian forces are just three kilometers from the outskirts of the main eastern Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk after making advances on Wednesday, according to Ukrainian mapping service DeepState.
The Russian army also destroyed or captured Ukrainian positions near the city, a Ukrainian army spokesman said.
“The enemy attacked our fortifications in the Pokrovsk sector west of the village of Vidrodzennia, south of Novotroitske, and as a result of prolonged fighting, two of our positions were destroyed and one was lost,” said Ukrainian military spokesman Nazar Voloshyn in televised comments.
Voloshyn added that fighting was ongoing on the outskirts of Shevchenkove, a village in the Kharkiv region on Ukraine’s eastern front.
Ukrainian military bloggers reported that the village fell to the Russians, a claim that has not been confirmed by Ukrainian or Russian officials.
Data from DeepState, a Ukrainian monitoring group and mapping service, showed Russian soldiers just three kilometers from the southern outskirts of Pokrovsk on Wednesday.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian regulator Donetskoblgaz warned that Pokrovsk will be cut off from gas supplies from this Thursday (12) due to the “worsening situation”.
“Due to significant damage to gas pipelines and constant hostile attacks, it is impossible to eliminate the consequences of hostilities in the gas distribution system and restore gas supplies to customers,” Donetskoblgaz said in a statement on Tuesday (10).
For months, Pokrovsk has been the site of some of the fiercest battles on the eastern front as Russia tries to close in on the city.
It is about 17 km from the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions of Ukraine and is a strategic target for Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to seize the eastern Ukrainian regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.
Although it is not a large city — Pokrovsk had a population of about 60,000 before the war and many have left since the large-scale invasion of Russia — it sits on a major supply road that connects it with military centers.
Pokrovsk forms the backbone of Ukrainian defenses in the part of the Donetsk region that is still under Kiev’s control. There are currently 11,000 people in Pokrovsk, according to local authorities.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky visited the besieged city in November and met with troops defending the region. In a video posted on his social media, Zelensky is seen shaking hands with soldiers and presenting them with awards.
“This is a tense and challenging direction,” he said at the time. “It is only thanks to the strength of our warriors that the east was not completely occupied by Russia. The enemy is confronted every day,” he added.
The fall of Pokrovsk to Moscow’s forces would mark the biggest setback for Ukraine in months and as Ukrainian forces struggled to come off the defensive amid heavy Russian pressure on the eastern front lines.
A looming Donald Trump presidency in the United States has raised the risk that military aid from Ukraine’s biggest source will stop flowing as the conflict moves into its second year.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a $725 million aid package for Ukraine on Monday as the Biden administration races to bolster Kiev in its remaining time in office.
Russia promises response to alleged ‘ATACMS’ attack
In another part of Russia’s war against Ukraine, Moscow vowed on Wednesday to respond to a Ukrainian attack on a southwestern Russian city that it claims involved six American-made ATACMS ballistic missiles.
The six long-range missiles were launched at the port city of Taganrog in the Rostov region in an early morning attack that injured Russian military personnel, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.
Ukraine acknowledged making “tangible strikes on Russian targets,” including military and energy facilities, but did not say what type of missiles were used.
In a statement on Telegram, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to allude to the attack, saying: “This is exactly the kind of range and precision that brings Russia back to reality step by step – to the reality that the war must end.”
Russia’s warning came just weeks after it fired a new type of hypersonic ballistic missile — the “Oreshnik” — at Ukraine in what it said was a response to Kiev’s use of American and British long-range weapons.
In Wednesday’s attack, according to Moscow, Russian air defenses shot down two missiles, while electronic warfare equipment deflected the others.
However, the ministry said Russian soldiers were injured by missile fragments, without specifying how many.
There was also minor damage to two buildings on the site of an airfield and three military vehicles as well as civilian cars in a nearby parking lot, it said.
The ministry stated that it had “credibly established” that American-made ATACMS were used in the attack and promised retaliation, warning that the use of long-range Western weaponry would not go unpunished.
“Appropriate measures will be taken,” the ministry said.
A US official warned on Wednesday that Russia could launch another Oreshnik missile at Ukraine in the coming days, according to Reuters.
Ivana Kottasová, Jennifer Hansler and Haley Britzky from CNN contributed to this report.
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This content was originally published in Russian forces are less than 3km from the main Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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